My Friend Michael 2011
 
 
CHAPTER THREE
GOOD-BYE NORMAL


  AT OUR NEW HOUSE IN FRANKLIN LAKES, NEW Jersey, Michael’s influence was increasingly apparent. My father liked the stone statues that graced Neverland, so he went out and bought similar statues to decorate our backyard. My father loved the classical music that played constantly across Neverland, so he had a sound system installed in that same backyard, complete with outdoor speakers shaped like rocks. Michael made a Neverland CD for us, and soon our life began to be lived with a classical soundtrack in the background. It would have been nice if my father had brought home a chimp for a pet, but he never took it that far.

   According to my parents, we had moved to Franklin Lakes for the school system, but as far as I was concerned, it was all about the soccer team. Growing up, I was considered one of the best soccer players in Hawthorne. Another guy, Michael Piccoli, was the best player in Franklin Lakes. Throughout my childhood, Michael Piccoli’s and my teams propagated a theoretical rivalry between him and me—we hadn’t met, but we knew we didn’t like each other. Now I’d moved to his turf, and even though I was only entering the eighth grade, the coach had recruited me to play soccer with the high school. Mike, who was in the same grade, would be doing this as well. We would be on the team together. It was the talk of the soccer world. The soccer world of northern New Jersey, at least.

   These were my biggest problems in my world. And then, just before school started, news arrived that completely eclipsed whatever soccer concerns I had. When I poked my head into the laundry room one afternoon looking for a shirt, my mother, who was in there, started to say something, stopped, then finally spoke. “Do you know a guy named Jordy?” she asked.

   “Yeah, he’s a really nice kid. I hung out with him at Neverland,” I said. She took that in for a moment and I could see her hesitation. Finally she blurted out:

   “Well, he is accusing Michael of child molestation.”

   The words came out awkwardly, as if she’d never uttered them before. It’s quite possible she hadn’t. I could see that my mother was upset, but I didn’t even know what “molestation” meant. When I asked, my mother turned back to the laundry and, avoiding the question, quickly said, “Did Michael ever do anything inappropriate to you or to anyone else that you know of?”

   “What are you talking about?” I asked, suddenly realizing that she was crying.

   “I feel so bad for Michael,” she said.

   Seeing the look on her face, I understood that my friend was being accused of doing something wrong to Jordy. I was beyond shocked: the idea didn’t even make sense to me. I had spent plenty of time with Jordy and Michael, and when I was at Neverland, Jordy never even stayed in Michael’s room with us. Not once. I had never seen anything out of line happen, and I didn’t believe anything had happened, not for a single second. Furthermore, Michael had never acted in any way even approximating “inappropriate” toward Eddie or me. This story was utterly unbelievable; I simply couldn’t imagine Michael as a molester. Nor could I imagine Jordy making such an accusation.

   “Is Michael going to be okay?” I asked.

   “Yeah, he’s going to be fine,” my mother replied.

   As this disturbing news sank in, I couldn’t help remembering some of what Jordy had said about his father during the trip we had taken to Disneyland together and later at the ranch. Jordy was an open, honest kid, and I didn’t have the sense that he was hiding anything. The night we’d gone to Toys “R” Us, he told me that his father, a dentist and aspiring screenwriter named Evan, was extremely jealous of Michael. He volunteered the information that his father thought it was weird that Michael was so close to Jordy and the rest of the family, and that the relationship had become a problem for the Chandler family. Thinking back on it, I remembered how Jordy had said that Evan had a terrible temper, that when he was upset he’d scream and bang things around the house.

   In retrospect, it’s not hard to see that Michael was a father figure for Jordy, that Jordy’s mother was attached to Michael, and that this most likely made for a problematic family dynamic. But at the time I wasn’t thinking in these larger terms. All I knew was that I was certain that Michael was being falsely accused—whether it was because of Jordy or his father didn’t matter.

   My mother had heard about the allegations on the news. In the days that followed, my parents reached out to Michael, who was still touring abroad for the Dangerous album. They told him they were one hundred percent convinced of his innocence and assured him that they would be there to support him if he needed them. Being on tour was always an isolating experience for Michael, and an hour later he sent back a fax. Faxes were big in those days—a primitive form of text messaging—and our family started exchanging faxes with Michael a couple times a day, sending silly drawings and little notes.

   At first Michael told my parents not to worry about him. He said it was a matter of extortion, and that they shouldn’t believe what they saw and heard on the news. He didn’t need to elaborate. My parents already knew the truth. They knew and trusted Michael in the face of a world that judged him with a severity that was as ignorant as it was cruel.

   Meanwhile, Eddie and I started attending our new school—the good school for which my parents had moved to our new neighborhood. But only a week or two after the school year began, before I’d even had a chance to see about this Mike Piccoli and his alleged soccer skills, an unexpected phone call came from Bill Bray. He told my parents that Michael wanted to invite the whole family to join him on tour in Tel Aviv.

   My mother was busy with my brother Dominic, who was six years old; my sister, Marie Nicole, who was three; and my baby brother, Aldo. There was no way she was flying to Israel. If we left now, Eddie and I would miss school, which certainly mattered to my parents. But first and foremost, what mattered was that we had a friend in need. This was not a local news story. It was global. And given the reach of Michael Jackson’s fame, the toll of the false allegations would be exponentially more damaging. My parents saw that the fallout from this scandal could have a devastating effect on Michael’s career, and on Michael’s entire life, and they knew that seeing Eddie and me at this time would cheer Michael up.

   So, the day after we got the call from Bill Bray, my father, Eddie, and I boarded a plane. We flew first class to Israel. Our arrival in Tel Aviv was carefully coordinated. A car picked us up and drove us through the city. Then, at some prearranged place, the driver pulled over and told us we were going to switch cars. We got out of our car and were guided through a crowd of fans to Michael’s car. When I got into the vehicle, I gave my friend a big hug and said, “Don’t worry, we’re here for you, we’re going to get through this together.”

   Michael smiled and just said, “Thanks.” But later, my father tells me, Michael expressed his gratitude to him for our visit. Michael said he would never forget this act of support, and that his friendship with our family was for life.

   Since Michael had the day off, we spent the next several hours sightseeing, driving around with a guide who was the head of Elizabeth Taylor’s security team.

   As well planned as the day was, though, it didn’t pass without a couple of hitches. As our guide drove us up to the Wailing Wall, for example, a veritable sea of some three hundred people began following the car. They pushed their faces against the car windows, trying to see through the tinted glass, some of them waving gifts they had brought for their beloved star. Helicopters circled over our heads. It was a scene unlike anything I had ever experienced. These people were all there for Michael. Unfortunately, we happened to arrive right at prayer time, causing a major interruption, to say the least. Michael had no idea that this was a sacred time of day, but in the next day’s papers, the media took him to task for his alleged lack of consideration.

   Back at the hotel, Eddie and I hung out with Michael in his room, distracting him, giving him support, and watching old movies on laser disc. My dad came and went, checking in on us and spending time with his buddy Bill Bray. As we watched the Bruce Lee movie Enter the Dragon, Michael got up and began mimicking Bruce Lee’s karate movements. He talked to us about every detail of the film—commenting on technical details about specific shots and explaining exactly what it was he worshipped about Bruce Lee. Through the years I would see Michael studying any number of great showmen: from Bruce Lee and Charlie Chaplin to James Brown, Frank Sinatra, Jackie Wilson, the Three Stooges, and Sammy Davis Jr. As he was doing now with Bruce Lee, Michael had a unique gift for incorporating the tricks of his heroes into his dancing. The hat, the glove, the walk—he got all that from Charlie Chaplin. There’s one move that he used when he performed “Billie Jean,” where he slid his neck forward and sideways, then bent over and did a strange walk—he got that from watching the movements of the Tyrannosaurus rex in the movie Jurassic Park.

   As the movie ended, Michael said, “Bruce Lee was the master. There will never be anybody like him. Whatever you do, you should master your craft. Be the best at it.”

   Even at this difficult moment, Michael was opening my mind in ways I wasn’t fully aware of at the time. He was teaching me to see things in a more complex way than I was used to. Instead of just absorbing entertainment at face value and unconsciously, I was beginning to analyze the art of it.

   But being with Michael wasn’t just about studying the subtleties of pop culture. The next stop of the tour was Istanbul, Turkey, where we stayed in a huge, beautiful hotel suite. Whenever Eddie and I had been with Michael, we had always been playful, tossing pillows around and stuff like that, but on this particular day Michael suddenly got an impish glimmer in his eyes and announced, almost in a whisper, “Let’s trash the hotel room.”

   That seemed like an excellent idea, so together with Michael, before we left Istanbul, Eddie and I wreaked havoc on the hotel room. We moved couches across the room, leaving them at odd angles. We tilted the pictures so they hung crooked on the walls. We scattered rose petals all over the floor. As far as trashing hotel rooms went, we weren’t what anyone would call masters of our craft. As his coup de grâce, Michael hauled back and threw a fork into a painting.

   The next day, backstage at the concert, Eddie and I were sitting in the dressing room right behind Michael watching his makeup artist, Karen, getting him ready to go out onstage. Michael warned us that Bill Bray was angry.

   “Bill’s gonna have to talk to you guys,” he told us. “We shouldn’t have trashed that room. I told him it was my fault and he should take it easy on you, but he has to talk to you.”

   While Michael was onstage performing, Bill Bray showed up and gave us hell for what we’d done.

   “I don’t think you realize that we have to pay for the damage you did,” Bill said, suddenly looking every inch of his not inconsiderable size. “We can’t leave hotels like that. It reflects badly on Michael.” Bill threatened to send us home, and Eddie and I started crying. I felt terrible, like it was the end of the world. And Eddie was equally devastated. Michael’s nickname for him was “Angel” because he always tried so hard to be good and respectful. We apologized to Bill. We didn’t want to cause problems. All of us, Bill included, knew that Michael had been the instigator of the trashing, but nonetheless, Bill wanted us to take responsibility for our own actions.

   Whether Bill intended it to be so or not, his verbal dressingdown of Eddie and me was a turning point in my life, a moment that instilled in me an early instinct to protect Michael and his reputation, even from his own actions, if necessary. We were the kids, it was true, but when it came to Michael’s impulses, sometimes we would have to be the adults. We had to think of the consequences to his image and reputation at all times, even when he didn’t.

  

   AS FAR AS WHAT WAS GOING ON WITH JORDY’S FAMILY, we only talked to Michael about it when he brought it up. When he did speak about it, it was often in a wistful tone, and I could tell that he was still trying to comprehend the fact that this horrible thing had occurred.

   “I did so much for his family,” he’d say.

   I would almost always respond with anger, saying things like “I just don’t understand how he could do such a thing.”

   “You don’t understand,” Michael would reply. “I don’t blame Jordy. It’s not his fault. It’s his father’s fault.”

   Michael forgave Jordy. He knew that a child wouldn’t come at him and ruthlessly attack him of his own volition. He believed it all came from the father. Later, when I was older, Michael would tell me that Jordy’s father had wanted Michael to invest in a film he wanted to make. Michael initially liked the idea, but his advisers were against it. They dismissed Jordy’s father rather thoughtlessly, and Michael, not one for confrontation, blew him off, too. Michael thought that this, more than anything else, had set Evan Chandler off. (The movie Chandler had written, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, was eventually produced and directed by Mel Brooks and came out that same year.)

   Michael was clearly upset about the circumstances he found himself in, but he always kept his composure when he was around us, remembering that we were kids. He was sensitive to what we would take away from this experience and to the effect it would have on our lives as well as his.

   At a certain point, my father had to get back home to his restaurant and my mother. At first Michael accepted this, but when the time came for us to go, he went to my father and broke down crying.

   “I know you have to get back to work,” he said through his tears, “but I’m asking if Frank and Eddie can stay here with me. I would really love for them to stay. You have no idea—just having you all here for this short amount of time has helped me so much. I promise you, Dominic, I’ll take care of them and watch over them as if they were my own.”

   We’d already missed a week of school. If we continued our stay with Michael, we would be traveling with him from country to country, finishing the European segment of the tour and then heading to North and South America. We wouldn’t be home until December.

   Missing school for a rock tour was a big deal, and my parents weren’t cavalier about the decision. But my father saw that Michael was alone. He had no family or friends near him on tour, just the crew, and he was dealing with just about the worst kind of accusations an innocent man could imagine facing, internationally famous or not.

   One thing that was not a factor in my parents’ decision was the allegations that had been leveled against Michael. People might question my parents’ judgment in sending two young boys off to spend time alone with a man who had been accused of molesting another boy. But to us, the suggestion that we were in any danger was completely absurd. My parents knew that Michael was innocent. They had known him well, for years, and to them he was family.

   Though they were aware of how odd he seemed to the outside world, they understood Michael’s idiosyncrasies from his perspective, and from this angle they came into focus and made some sense. When he wore a surgical mask, people thought he was hiding some new plastic surgery—in reality he was at first protecting himself from getting sick before performances; then he found that wearing the mask made him feel like he was in disguise (when in fact it called more attention to him); and ultimately he turned it into a one-of-a-kind fashion statement, having his silken surgical masks custom-made. When he was photographed in a hyperbaric chamber, rumors began flying that he slept in it—in reality he’d donated it to a local hospital to be used in the treatment of burn victims. Of course, sometimes Michael was just being a character, joking around, but the impetus for his behavior was never as freaky as people were always so quick to assume.

   To us, Michael was the funniest, nicest, and most playful friend imaginable. With my parents, his behavior was that of a humble, kind, and mature adult, a brilliant, well-read man with interesting, thoughtful opinions. My parents spent entire evenings talking with him, learning from him. They saw him as a good influence on their sons. Above all, my parents knew Michael’s true heart. They were well aware of how responsible and loving Michael was, and they had absolute trust in him, his staff, and his security guys. My father had already spent a substantial amount of time with us on tour, so he knew the crew personally and knew what the schedule was like. He also had a very close relationship with Bill Bray, who ran security. There was a long-term, high level of trust and confidence that was already firmly in place. We would be safe.

   My father is fiercely protective of his family. We mean everything to him, and he would never put us in harm’s way. In my dad’s book, never mind prison, pedophiles should be thrown to the wolves. (He’s from Sicily, after all.) If he and my mother had had any doubts about Michael’s innocence, no matter how small, believe me, my brother and I would not have been there, much less stayed.

   I want to be precise and clear, on the record, so that everyone can read and understand: Michael’s love for children was innocent, and it was profoundly misunderstood. People seemed to have trouble accepting all the good qualities of this incredible man, and were always asking how it could be that he was the greatest singer on earth, the greatest dancer on earth, and yet enjoy hanging around with children all day? How could he write and perform such explosively sexual, complex songs, and then have nothing but harmless interactions with the kids with whom he surrounded himself? How could he have so many idiosyncrasies that seemed weird to the outside observer—the plastic surgery, the bizarre purchases, the secrecy—and then not be “weird” in other, more offensive ways?

   Yes, Michael had different personas. The same way I myself became a different person depending on whether I was home with my family, traveling with Michael, or back in school in New Jersey. The same way we all put on different faces for dealing with different parts of our lives. If Michael’s different images seemed extreme, it was only because his life was more extreme than anyone else’s. For all the hard work he’d put in during his own childhood, for all the perfectionism that drove his music, Michael craved the simplicity and innocence of the youth he had never fully experienced. He revered it, he treasured it, and, especially through Neverland, he tried to offer it to others. People had trouble understanding all this, and many assumed the worst. This misunderstanding was the greatest sorrow of Michael’s life. He carried it with him to the end. I am here to say that I knew the real Michael Jackson. I knew him throughout my childhood. In all that time, he never showed himself to be anything but a perfect friend. Never did he make a questionable advance or a sexual remark. My parents were older and wiser than my brother or I. If anything, their perspective was broader and more encompassing than ours. And they trusted Michael implicitly.

   When my father talked to Bill Bray about the possibility of Eddie and me remaining on the tour, Bill said, “Yeah, Michael’s been down. Those kids, they keep him going.” My parents knew that we would be a great source of comfort to Michael. They checked with our school to see if we could make up our classwork with a tutor. Then, at last, my father said the magic words: “You can stay.”